Helen Tamiris by Man Ray (and me!)

I went on a papercutting workshop recently – something I’ve been meaning to explore for quite some time.

We worked on a couple of things on the day, but for me not an original piece of artwork.

So this is my first proper karuski papercut!

I was inspired by this picture by Man Ray – I didn’t know who she was but was struck by her awesome, and dug a little deeper. (Love what my printer does when running out of ink, by the way)

Turns out this particular muse has a lot going for me – her name was Helen Tamiris, she was a dancer and choreographer and buddy to the Man. She was pretty avant-garde of course, partly by working on gospel way way way before Alvin Ailey.

See, my sweet mama was herself a dancer and dance teacher (hell, she still teaches at 75!!), so I do have a bit of a special place for dance and dancers.

There were no colour pic of Helen that I could find, but a text did mention her fabulous mop of red hair, and lo, she had to go technicolour…

Loved working some cut out patterns in her hair and bringing that kimono to life.